Can't Help Falling in Love
by HarlequinRavenwing
Summary: ONE SHOT - Boone and the Courier finally give into their hearts and share much more than either of them could ever have expected. Rated M for a tender sexual encounter.


CAN'T HELP FALLING IN LOVE

"Goddamn it, Boone! What were you thinking?" The courier snarled angrily as she followed the former 1st Recon sniper into his motel room. "I mean, seriously…do you have a fucking death wish or something? No wait, ask a stupid question…"

"This your idea of a debrief?" He stated flatly, his eyes hidden behind the blackened lenses of his sun-glasses.

"A debrief!" The courier threw her hands up into the air and scowled. "Those Legion motherfuckers almost took you out, Boone! In case you hadn't noticed, rushing headlong into a bunch of those pricks is tantamount to suicide! I told you to wait and cover me! Not charge in like Grognak the Barbarian with a hard-on!"

He stiffened at that, not like he ever looked relaxed to start with. Even when he was asleep, there was a certain tension to the set of his shoulders. The guy never switched off…

"Look Elleann, I was just doing my job." He said in that calm voice of his. "You'd been spotted and I didn't have time to screw around waiting to see which way you'd jump."

"I had him in my sights you asshole!" The courier snapped, her anger fuelled by both desperation and concern. "You were 1st Recon, Boone and you're still the best of the best! All you had to do was fire one lousy bullet…"

"And the whole camp would have zeroed in on your position." A flicker of emotion crossed his face. "I'm good, but even I couldn't have killed them all before they got to you."

The bitter retort that was on Elleann's lips died as she saw him swallow hard. Something was bothering him, something that was powerful enough to turn the knuckles of his clenched fists startlingly white.

"Still…" She breathed, trying to calm the storm of emotions that were whirling through her head. "You could have gotten yourself killed out there. Jesus…when I saw you running into them, I almost died inside. If anything had happened to you…"

"Are we done here?" Boone regarded her coolly and crossed over to his locker.

Elleann simply watched as he began to unfasten his armour with well-practiced efficiency. First the many buckles holding his shoulder guards in place, then the straps cinching the back and chest plates together, until finally he was able to shrug out of the NCR issue gear and peel off the khaki fatigues beneath. Each successive layer was removed and stashed with military precision until he was stood only in his slacks and a thin grey tee.

And the beret of course.

He never took off the beret…

"Boone…" Elleann felt her throat tightening as he turned to face her. "Boone, please talk to me."

"It's late." He murmured, suddenly unwilling to meet her gaze. "You should go get some sleep."

"Don't you do that. Don't _dismiss_ me." Elleann was sure he would be able to hear the hammering of her heart even from across the other side of the room. "I need you to talk to me. I need to talk about what happened…"

"You infiltrated the Legion camp. They saw you. I made a judgement call."

"That's not what I meant."

"We're here, they're not. Conversation's over." He sat down hard on the end of his bed and began unlacing his boots as if indifferent to her presence.

"So that's it?" Elleann snapped, her frustration beginning to gnaw away at her restraint. "You think this is just about the Legion? Boone, you know it's not…"

Silence from him. Nothing but a slight twitch in the set of his jaw

"Boone, look at me."

His gaze remained on his bootlaces.

"Boone! For God's sake, please talk to me!"

"Got nothing to say."

"Jesus fucking Christ, I almost lost you!" Elleann coloured as the words tore from her throat. "Do you really think I can just walk out of here without telling you what that did to me…?"

"Don't."

"…what you mean to me?"

"I said don't."

"Don't? Don't what?" Elleann felt hot tears beginning to burn in her eyes. "Don't worry about you? Don't care about you? 'Cos, I got news for you pal, it's too late for that! I care about you more than I've ever cared about anybody in my miserable fucking life…"

"For God's sake Elleann, would you just stop!"

The courier was taken aback as Boone's leapt to his feet and reached her in one angry stride. His face was a mixture of pain and confusion and it was the first real emotion she had seen from him since he told her about the massacre at Bitter Springs. Maybe he was regretting that decision…

"You just keep pushing don't you?" He growled, towering over her and shaking like a newborn colt. "You push and you dig and then when you hear something you don't like, you think you can fix it…fix me. Well I'm not your project Elleann. I don't need anyone to rescue me."

"Oh I get it." Elleann snapped, standing her ground despite having to look up into the tall sniper's face. "You don't want to be rescued. You don't want to hear anything that might make you feel a little better about yourself. You just want a bullet in the head, so you can forget about the women and children you killed, so you can forget about Carla, only don't look to me to be the one to pull the trigger…"

She felt the air being forced from her lungs as Boone slammed her against the wall, and the look of pure rage on his face was enough to make her stomach lurch.

"You think you know it all don't you." He snarled his voice heavy with menace as he fisted his hands in the fabric of her jacket. "You think you know all the goddamn answers, that it's all about me, but I'll tell you this…you don't know me at all, so don't even go there."

"So what is it about?" Elleann rasped, her voice choked off by the pressure he was applying to her chest. "Is it about guilt? Is it about living with decisions you had to make? Fucking hell, Boone, you were a soldier! You were under orders to shoot those people and I know that doesn't make it any easier but you gotta learn to live with this because it's destroying you inside and …"

"This isn't just about Bitter Springs, Goddamnit! This isn't even about Carla! Fuck me…why don't you ever listen, Elleann!" Boone roughly shoved her backward and then slammed his fist into the crumbling plasterboard covering the wall.

The courier's knees buckled and she slid awkwardly to the floor as she watched the furious sniper struggling to bring himself under control. She'd never seen him like this, so full of passionate anger, so full of tormenting pain and yet there was still something beneath it all that he wasn't telling her. Something big enough to make him loose it big time and frankly, it scared the shit out of her.

She'd been with him for months now, ever since she first drifted into Novac looking for Benny. He'd been cold and distant from the moment they met, not exactly _hostile_ as such, but certainly not very welcoming either. Then Manny Vargas had told her about his wife, Carla and how she'd been taken by the Legion. That's when she'd finally started to understand the man beneath the red beret.

In some ways Boone was right. She had wanted to help him, to bring him some sense of peace and closure, but it wasn't that simple.

After hearing what had happened to Carla and the unborn baby she carried, bringing him that motherfucking, slave trading, Legion loving cunt, Jeannie May Crawford had seemed like poetic justice. Watching the bitch's head come apart when Boone lined her up in his sights, had felt good, but being able to give him the proof he needed to justify it to himself had been even more important to her. He needed to know he'd done the right thing.

As it turned out, it had been the first step on a rather blood-soaked road to a successful working relationship with the sniper, and after a time he'd even started to trust her enough to open up a little. Though they weren't exactly close, Boone had confided to her just how much he loved Carla and just how much it had destroyed him to have her so cruelly taken away.

Then further on down the line, while they were out near Camp McCarran doing some work for the NCR, he'd told her about 'taking the shot'.

Elleann had listened in stunned silence as he described scoping his beloved wife in the sights of his sniper rifle and ending her life with a single bullet in order to save her from the fate that awaited her at the hands of the Legion slavers.

It was the stuff of nightmares.

Apparently, Boone had tracked the slavers to a nearby camp, but by the time he'd got there, there was too many of them and he was too far away and without backup. Liberating the camp single-handedly was out of the question and so he'd done the only thing he could do, and had lived with the consequences ever since.

If you could call it living…

Sometimes, it was like he was on autopilot. He was always so quiet and so…detached.

All the while they travelled together, he simply kept his distance, never once asking about her life as a courier or about why it was she was travelling the Mojave looking for that goddamn platinum chip and the asshole who stole it. He was like a ghost, or a guardian angel or some shit like that. If she got two words out of him, she classed it as a major conversation.

Saying that, he'd never once left her side when danger threatened, nor judged her when she fucked up a shot. Until now, he'd never cussed her out or raised his voice in anger and he'd never, ever made a pass at her during those long, lonely nights under the stars when God knows, Elleann could have quite happily sought comfort in the strong arms of the man beside her…

But then, there was more to it than that wasn't there?

It wasn't like her relationship with Boone wasn't complicated enough, but lately Elleann had found herself growing steadily more attracted to him and when she closed her eyes at night, it was the tall 1st Recon sniper that occupied her dreams almost as much as he occupied her waking hours.

And today…he'd almost thrown his life away without a second thought.

And it hurt.

It hurt like hell.

"Boone…" Elleann murmured, gingerly climbing to her feet. "Boone, are you okay?"

"No." He answered softly, keeping his back to her so that she couldn't see his face. "I'm not okay. I am far from okay."

"I'm sorry." She said softly, nervously laying her hand upon his shoulder. "I just…I just hate to see you like this. Do you really think Carla would have wanted you to live this way? Do you think it would make her happy to know that you'd gotten yourself killed?"

She felt him flinch beneath her fingertips and when he spoke again, his words were barely above a whisper.

"This isn't about my wife, Elleann." There was an odd tone in his voice and the courier felt a ball of tension knotting inside her gut. "This…this is about you and me."

"What…" The courier felt as if her heart had just leapt into her throat and she reeled back as if she'd been struck.

"I'm sorry, but I can't do this." Boone turned slowly to face her, pulling the glasses from his face so that she could finally look into his deep blue eyes. "I keep telling myself that it's just my job to watch out for you, that when I'm blowing the head off some Legionary fuck, it's just about the payback…but it's getting harder to believe that now. It's becoming personal, Elleann and when it's personal, too much can go wrong."

"I don't understand…" Elleann frowned. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that when I lost Carla, I thought I'd never feel anything again." He sighed softly and then looked at the floor. "But when I saw you in the camp today, when I thought they were going to hurt you, I wanted to kill them all to get you out. I lost it for one second and that put you at risk… "

"Boone…I'm right here, look at me." Elleann placed her fingers beneath his strong, clean-shaven chin and lifted the sniper's face to hers. "I'm alive aren't I? We got out, _you_ got me out. I'm not going anywhere."

"But what if it happens again. What if they take me and you're left alone…"

"Then I'll shoot my way out of whatever mess I'm in and fight my way back to you." Elleann felt breathless and her body had begun to ache in response to his nearness. "I'm not going to leave you Boone, I…I'm your partner. I know you lost Carla, but I'm not her, do you understand? I'm not her."

"No, you're not." He hesitantly reached up to stroke her raven hair and a sad smile ghosted across his lips. "You're as different to her as night is to day…and I can't help the way I feel about you."

"Which is…?"

His face was so near to hers that she could feel his breath upon her cheeks. She'd never noticed before, but his eyes were the same shade of blue as the desert skies and seemed just as endless. His skin felt warm and rough beneath her fingertips and she could feel a pull deep inside as he leaned in close.

When his lips closed over hers, it was with a passion she'd never expected from one who always seemed so in control. He tasted her and swallowed her gasping breaths like a man starved of oxygen and she responded in kind, slipping her tongue between his teeth, and nipping at his flesh with a hunger that had longed to be sated for so long now.

There was a definite urgency in the way he yanked off her jacket and in his obvious haste to see her naked, he didn't even bother to undo the buttons of her shirt and instead simply pulled it open, scattering the broken fastenings all over the floor.

In response, Elleann grabbed the bottom of his tee and lifted high over his over his head, displacing the red beret that she'd never seen him take off, even when he slept.

When their eyes met again, he paused a moment and she could see his control warring with his instinct for dominance as he contemplated her half naked torso. There was also a question in his eyes as he reached out to cup her face, an unspoken request for…forgiveness, permission…or maybe something else…

Ah yes…of course.

With a grin, she pulled the beret out from the tangle of his tee and handed it to him. Boone simply smiled knowingly and took it from her, before laying itdown atop the small bookcase next to the bed.

Apparently there were some things he did without it after all…

The moment of levity passed as the sniper pulled her away from the wall and gathered her into his arms once again. The sensation of his bare skin against hers was like throwing petrol on the fire that burned deep inside her core and she moaned softly as he began to tease at the skin of her throat with his small sharp teeth. Elleann let her hands roam all over his muscular torso, following the deliciously hard contours of his body as she explored every inch of his toned back, and every curve of his smooth hairless chest.

She could feel his hand working beneath her shirt to free her beasts from the confines of the rather ugly, military issue bra that she wore and she arched her back to give him better purchase on the clasp. When it finally snapped open, Boone pulled back to slide both shirt and bra down past her shoulders and then cupped her heavy breasts in his rough, calloused hands. He kissed her again as he began to massage the tender white flesh and she groaned into his mouth as he grasped her stiffening nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. Gentle pinching turned into insistent tugging as he listened to the sounds of her pleasure and reacted accordingly and Elleann couldn't help but cry out when his hot, hungry mouth left hers and settled over one breast. She felt a slickness pooling between her thighs as he licked and sucked at her sensitive teat and she let her head fall back, closing her eyes against all distraction as Boone suckled upon her, pushing her to the very edge of sexual pleasure.

"Boone…" She murmured his name like a blessing and he squeezed his arms about her waist as he propelled her backward onto the bed.

She felt a little disoriented as she suddenly found herself pressed against the mattress with his body-weight holding her in place but she simply threw her arms about his neck and drew him back to her lips, sighing as she gave herself over to his deep, exploratory kisses. He began to trail them all over her body, pausing only to flick his tongue over her erect nipples, eliciting mewls of pleasure from her as she writhed and twisted beneath him. His deft fingers had been busily unbuckling the belt of her slacks and she was more than a little surprised when he slid them down past her hips along with the cotton shorts she was wearing. The gentle tug at each ankle told her he'd had no problem pulling off her boots and she was suddenly aware that she was completely naked on Craig Boone's bed, in Craig Boone's room with the man himself half-dressed and ready to take her at any moment.

Feeling exposed and more than a little self-conscious, Elleann lay back against his sheets and closed her eyes, trying to catch her breath as her skin flushed pink. Hell, she'd been with guys before and it wasn't like it was her first time, so why did it feel so different now? Why was it that with every passing second she could feel herself succumbing to something infinitely more dangerous and all-consuming than an atomic blast?

As she opened her eyes and propped herself up on her elbows, she realised that Boone was staring down at her with an expression on his face that suggested he was having the same thoughts. His usually stoic face was softened by his quiet contemplation and the distant look in his blue eyes told her that he was somewhere else making god knows what decision about what was going to happen in the next five minutes.

She took a moment to drink him in, admiring his strong, square jawline and the way his sharp features were softened by the dusting of sandy blonde hair he wore shaved so close to his scalp. His neck was thick and led perfectly to the broadly muscled expanse of his chest and his abdomen was shaped like a pathway of muscle leading to whatever lay beyond his belted combat pants. His arms were likewise bound by muscle and his wrists and forearms were as solid as his biceps. He was more man than she'd ever known in her life, but it was the heart that beat within that drew her to him like a moth to the flame.

"Elleann." His voice was gentle, but he commanded her attention immediately and the unfailing commitment she saw when saw met his eyes made her own heart thunder loudly in her chest. "You know there's been no one else since Carla and you know I'm not into one-night stands."

She nodded by way of reply.

"And I know I don't need to tell you that I'm not certain about what's left inside me, or what future we have together, but I promise you this…everything I have left, everything I am now, is yours. I'll always be here for you Elleann and I wish I could offer you more…"

"When it comes to you, I'm happy to take what I can get." Elleann breathed, finally realising just what she was afraid of. "Thing is, I love you Boone...I tried not to, but I love you."

"I know." He sighed softly and then began to loosen the belt of his combats before letting them fall to the floor as he stepped out of his boots.

Once again he spread himself over her, lowering his body onto hers as he resumed kissing her with a passion that made her throat tighten with emotion and her sex ache with desperate longing. She could feel his member, hot and solid against her abdomen as he pressed against her and she reached down to stroke it, gasping at his length.

His own fingers trailed through the dark curling hair covering her pussy and pushed insistently between the folds of her labia even as his tongue caressed her lips, encouraging her to open her mouth as she opened her legs. He swallowed her cries of want as both his tongue and his digit found themselves inside her and he groaned loudly as her hand convulsively gripped his shaft.

Elleann wanted to cry out loud as he began to finger her, gently pressing his palm against her clit as he slipped first one, then two fingers into her core and then drew them out again with agonising slowness. She pushed against him, trying to set a rhythm that would bring her to climax quickly, but Boone was patient. Years of staring down a rifle sight had taught him to wait, to savour the perfect moment and now was no exception.

At the same time, he began to thrust into her hand, matching that same slow, seductive pace that was now causing her body to tremble with the intensity of it all.

"Please…" she panted breathlessly. "Please Boone. Oh god, I can't take this."

"Not yet." He whispered in her ear, his tongue flicking over the sensitive skin beneath. "I want to be in you when it happens…I need to feel you…"

"Then make love to me, Boone." Elleann reached up with her free hand and tenderly stroked his cheek. "Please, make love to me."

The sniper looked deep into her glassy grey eyes and kissed away the tears that had fallen earlier with a brush of his lips. Elleann shuddered with anticipation as he gently withdrew his fingers from her body and pushed first one knee, then the other between her trembling thighs. As he raised himself into position, he looked down on her as if committing each detail of her face to memory and then gave her one of those rare smiles of his.

Then she felt his head cresting at her entrance.

"I love you." She gasped, feeling him nudging between her folds, slickening his tip with her juices.

"Elleann…"

He sighed her name as he began to slide into her and stars exploded behind her eyes.

He was so big…so fucking big…

"Jesus Christ!" She closed her eyes as he hilted himself, only stopping once his velvet ball sack was brushing against her buttocks. He felt incredible, like he was filling up her entire being and not just her pussy and she lay motionless beneath him as he pulsed inside her, giving her time to adjust to his magnificent cock.

"Easy now…" He groaned as he began to slide back, and Elleann blinked at the feeling of emptiness left behind as he slowly withdrew from her.

Then he slid inside once more, only this time there was a little more force behind the thrust and she cried out as the nerves deep within her sex flashed with sensation.

"Oh God, Boone…"

Again and again he fucked her, deep and slow and she savoured every moment of his penetration as he filled her with his length. Sweat beaded on his brow and his chest muscles flexed with each thrust as he began to grind himself into her and Elleann almost cried for want of release from this exquisite torture.

Suddenly, she felt the walls of her pussy beginning to contract wildly about his member. Her limbs were alive with prickling stimulus and the very air she was breathing seemed too heavy to fill her lungs, making it difficult to catch her breath.

"Boone…Craig…Oh my God!"

His pace increased as he drove into her now, forcing her to yield to his increasingly powerful strokes. His lip curled as he took her and he grunted with the effort, the years of pain and heartache all being forced aside as he revelled in this single desperate act that he knew would bring her to climax, that he knew he alone controlled and was the cause of.

"I can't hang on much longer…" He groaned, his brows knitting together as he watched the courier writhing beneath him. "Come for me, Elleann…come for me!"

"Yes Boone…yes!"

His name burst from her lips as she wrapped her long legs around his waist and pulled herself onto him even harder. Her body was shuddering, alive with feeling as she matched him thrust for thrust, desperate plunge for desperate plunge.

It was too intense, it was too much…she couldn't take it anymore. Boone was inside her, as far as he could go and she wanted nothing else in this world, nothing else but his cock and his love…

"Oh God, Boone…I'm coming!"

She wailed as her sex spasmed violently around his shaft and her nails dugs into his shoulders, clawing at his skin as the first waves of orgasm washed over her. She felt undone, adrift as he continued to fuck her, his merciless length reaching her depths even as she floundered on the rocks of oblivion but there was another pulse inside her, one that throbbed with an urgency she had longed for almost as much as her own release.

She willed open her eyes, forcing them to focus on the man before her as his face contorted with emotion and then, with a cry that she felt in her heart, he spilled inside her and she felt his hot sticky climax pumping out in hot, rhythmic spurts as he gradually slowed his pace. His arms began to shake as he lowered himself back to the sweat soaked comfort of her body and she welcomed him into her arms as he sought tender reassurance from her quivering lips.

They said nothing for a long time, each one content to tenderly kiss the other as they waited for the heat of their passion to abate. With infinite care, Boone reached up to push aside the strands of hair that had become slicked to her forehead and Elleann smiled wearily as he softly caressed her face. After a time he rolled onto his back and pulled her beside him and she was content to lie in his arms, knowing that from now on, whenever she awoke in the morning, he would always be there beside her and maybe, just maybe…

…one day he would care for her, as much as she cared for him.

* * *

><p>The sun had not yet quite risen over the town of Novac when Craig Boone stepped out of his room to take in the early morning air. He'd made sure that Elleann was still sleeping before he'd slipped on his pants, glasses and beret, then he'd carefully crept outside without waking her. God knows she looked beautiful as she slept and it had been a long time since there had last been a woman in his bed.<p>

Not since Carla actually…

Leaning against the wall, Boone reached into one of the pockets of his pants and pulled out a crumpled picture. It had always pained him to look at it ever since…well, ever since then but now it felt like he wanted to see her, just one last time to explain things.

Fuck.

He'd almost forgotten just how beautiful Carla was. Her hair had been like spun gold, all bouncy curls and cut short around her heart-shaped face and her eyes were like shining emeralds, glinting and green. She'd been tall and slender, like a reed blowing in the wind and she had an elegance about her that the others here in town just didn't seem to get. She liked to talk too, one of the reasons he loved her so much. She made him laugh, she made him forget and when he found out she was pregnant, it was one of the happiest days of his life.

Then she was gone and he was alone.

Until Elleann came along…

He'd been telling the truth when he'd told her she was nothing like Carla. She was shorter and a lot rounder with curves that filled his hands in the most wonderful way. Her hair was long and straight, like black silk spilling through his fingers and her eyes were as grey and hard as steel, yet hid nothing from him when he looked into their cool depths. She was always about the chit-chat too, but she'd got a habit of asking more questions than he was willing to answer and that was one of the reasons he'd resisted her for so long.

But not now.

Now things were different.

Boone glanced around anxiously just in case anyone was watching him then held the picture in his hands and tried to stop the tears that were threatening to fall from his eyes.

"Hey Baby." He murmured softly to the vibrant smiling woman in the picture. "I just wanted to talk to you, and I know you can't hear me…or maybe you can…I don't know, but I guess I need to say this aloud just so I can believe it myself." He took a deep shuddering breath and then looked out over the horizon. "See, I've met someone and I slept with her tonight and it felt…well, it felt good and it felt right. I wanted to be with her, Baby. I wanted to be with her not just for the sex, but because I care about her and now I don't know what that means."

Heedless of his efforts, a tear fell onto the photograph and Boone tenderly wiped it away with this thumb.

"It's not love, not yet…but it could be and even though I wanted to say that my heart will always be yours, but truth is, I can't do that. So I figure I need to be honest with you and tell you that I'll always love you Carla, and I'll always wonder what could have been, but I have a real chance here and I guess this is me finally saying…goodbye."

The sun was finally cresting over the horizon as Boone closed his eyes and pressed the picture to his lips. He took a moment to let the warm rays caress his face and dry away his tears before he slipped the faded image back into his pants. It was starting to brighten up pretty quick and Boone quietly pulled open the door to his room and hurried back inside before the streaming light woke the sleeping courier and she discovered him gone. Stripping quickly out of his clothes, he climbed back into bed beside her and curled his body around hers, pulling her tight against him and inhaling the earthy scent of her hair. She shifted slightly, pressing her back against his chest and reaching around to pull his arm across her shoulders.

"I love you Boone…" She murmured sleepily, a gentle smile upon her soft red lips.

"Give me time, Elleann." He replied quietly, finally finding some peace in holding the beautiful girl before him. "I don't think I can help falling in love with you."

He didn't care right then whether she'd heard him or not.

After all, there would be plenty of chances to tell her in the future.

* * *

><p><strong>Okay, I admit it was a little bit fluffy toward the end but hell, it's Boone and I figured he deserved a break. Besides, who wouldn't want the guy to fall in love with them…he's so damn tortured and sexy. <strong>

**Just a drabble that wouldn't get out of my mind, so I stayed up until 2am just trying to get it down and done to clear my head.**

**Damn that sniper is just too hot to leave on a back burner…**


End file.
